Just a 10K with a 20 Mile Warm Up

During the first 13 miles of the race, my thoughts were mostly positive. They were revolving around “I feel GREAT”/ “This is a great pace!”/ “I could keep running forever at this pace.”

At mile 15, the thoughts changed to, “Wow, this is some pretty bad pain going on in my right knee currently”/ “If I stop to walk can I start to run again after that?”/ “Okay, I’m walking.” / “This is the first time I have to walk no big deal.”

By mile 19, gone was the positive thinking, replaced with “It feels like someone is driving a sledgehammer into my knees right now”/ “I want to curl up into a ball”/ “I would sell my firstborn child if it meant that this race would end at the next mile”.

At mile 25 I was almost in tears. Which, when you’ve reached that point in a marathon, there’s not a lot you can do to control yourself, let alone calm yourself down to talk yourself out of crying. But it’s okay, I managed to calm down enough to run the last 1.2 miles and cry at the finish line.

The California International Marathon started in Folsom and went all the way to the State’s capital. That means I ran through four different cities to get from point A to point B. I even got to run past  the Sacramento location of de Vere’s Irish Pub (I work in the Davis location), see lots of rolling hills, farms, and quaint old towns of cities.

And some alpacas. And a lot of goats on a leash which was weird. I don’t really have much more to add to that.

All in all, am I glad I ran 26.2 miles? Yes. Am I glad that it’s over? Heck yes. The fact that I thought this was always going to be a very unattainable thing on my bucket list only proves two things:

1) I need to rethink my bucket list & 2) I need to think more outside the box for said bucket list

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

 

Above is Bianna and I. Bianna is the girl who somehow convinced me to run this full marathon with her, after her aunt bailed on her two months before the race because of an injury. If you can’t tell, I’ve just been crying. I’m also in some pretty extreme knee joint pain here.

Below is a photo of Bianna, her aunt’s friend Lana, and myself. Lana works with Bianna’s aunt and ran the marathon in under 4 hours (impressive to say the least). Bianna and I both finished at 5 hours and 22 minutes.

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

As all great athletes do, we channeled our inner Olympians and tried to eat our medals.

This is one of those experiences I’ll be bragging about til they bury me in the ground.

One Reply to “Just a 10K with a 20 Mile Warm Up”

  1. […] daughter Amanda, who’s run both a full and half marathon, roped me into running a 10K recently. Well, she didn’t twist my arm too hard. I do my best […]

Leave a Reply